by Sarah
Window Farming in Norway
5:08 am in International, Seeking Advice by Sarah
I have discovered a growing (no pun intended) love for gardening in the past several months, and in perusing the internet trying to learn everything I can, I stumbled upon your website. I absolutely love it: I am so excited about becoming a window farmer! What a fantastic way to bring green living into city apartments. We have a huge kitchen window, nearly 5 x 7, and now I look at it and am dazzled by the opportunity there! I am slightly concerned about the light availability. At the moment, we have 24 hours of light, but in the dark season, we receive only about 3 hours of sunlight each day. I am wondering how it will affect my plants, but will give it a go and keep you posted. If anyone has any thoughts, I’d love to hear.
Cheers!
Sarah
Hey Sarah!
I’m living in Berlin and even my plants experience some light depravation stress in winter that I have to make up for with lamps and that will only be worse up north, where you live. Since Northern Hemisphere plants are accustomed to shorter light periods in winter they react to shortening days and lower temperatures by basically going into “standby” – building up reserves in root organs, losing their leaves and building up cold resistance. But plants living inside your living quarters in winter will, because of the temperatures you’re heating generates, “think” that it’s summer and therefore “expect” at least 10-12 hours of light every day. They won’t have any reserves going into winter and would definitely die, if you don’t supply them with extra light every day. Depending on the plant and the temperature they’re kept at (maybe your kitchen’s cold in winter?) you’ll need to figure out how many hours of light they’ll need and then get some lamps for them.
Happy Growing!
Anne
Get a LED-based grow-light?
That’s what I plan to do, eventually…
BTW: Don’t forget to sign up for the Norway group…
3 hours is definitely not enough but 24 hours might be extreme as well.
Window farms recommends CFL bulbs to fill in for the sun, but you might be able to find something better at a hydroponics store.
See Britta’s post here:
http://our.windowfarms.org/2009/12/21/growing-with-cfl-bulbs/
I personally use Sun blasters. The plants seem to like them
http://sunblasterlighting.com/